Sunday Afternoon at the Red House
by Zuzubirds
Summary: Katara goes out for water. She comes back with the opposite. Companion fic to Sticks and Stones.


_A'ight. Here's one of the (sigh) very, very few fics I let survive the War of Plots. Ever written something down and thought is sounded much better in your head? Yeah. hundreds of **those **things trying to get past me. Anywho, it's the companion fic to Sticks and Stones, a ONESHOT (which I have to remind myself a lot). I'm sure any attempt to continue it would end in disgust from you guys, as I'm not quite sure where I'd go with it. But for now, there's lots of awkwardness for you to enjoy! I was a bit hesitant to post it at first, since something seems off about it. Cracked, if you will. It all but sneaked up on me and duct-taped me to my laptop. But enjoy the Katara-centric fic that I've put together! Let's hear it for the Red House! (Yes, yes, the title is a stupid pun taken from a chapter of Silas Marner. Don't throw things at me.)_

_P.S. does anyone know another word for hockey because no hockey in atla but i cant find aNOTHER WORD HELP_

_Disclaimer: You know the deal._

_Comments are food for a writer's soul. :)_

* * *

.

.

It is not an unusual day. It is not raining, they are not starving, and Sokka is not having a fit. His last one was a whole day ago, come to think of it. Katara thinks it's odd. But she doesn't say so, because saying so would be inviting another bout of _me, me, me_.

She sits against a tree, legs crossed, hair down and hands up in gestures she calls _invisible modern waterbending_. She created these particular moves by herself. Gran Gran would be impressed, if Gran Gran were here. She would also have on a thick parka, ready smile, and warm fur-lined gloves covering the hands that held a steaming bowl of stewed sea prunes.

_Eat up, _she'd say.

Katara thinks about how easy it is to forget somebody's face when you are trying hard to remember it. She remembers her initial disgust of stewed sea prunes, Sokka's stupid little laugh when she made a pinched face, Gran Gran's gentle, wrinkled smile. But memories are like the beginning of migraines, in that sense. She can see everything, but never concentrate on them. And over time that sight becomes darker and darker until all she can remember are broken sentences, words that don't make sense to her and the picture of her scattered family is almost lost.

"…Mom," slips from her mouth. It brings up a picture of fireplaces, handmade dolls and an enemy's brown eyes. Her hands lower to her sides and she tilts her head up to the thick curtain of strange tropical leaves overhead, before she tunes in to hear Toph speaking.

"…Least I can seedown here and everything, but, well_,_" the girl says loudly, and Katara knows she's been bellyaching about something. Toph continues in an even higher pitch. "I don't mean to complain or anything, but it wouldn't hurt to have a _waterbender _with _nice, cool water _to drink."

Typical Toph. But Katara wouldn't have been surprised if Sokka had been doing the complaining. And Toph's statement brings a small sigh from Teo, who rests in his wheelchair with his hands in his lap; he turns his head sideways to look wistfully at Katara. Under the circumstances, she'd give up her murky bending water, but they've drunk that already and Katara isn't quite to the point where she can bend moisture from the air like Hama had. She knows they all expect her to pity them: all five of them sitting under weak shade in a hot breeze. It could be worse, though. Aang could have preferred that they walk up on the sandy plateau, where Katara's sure the sunbaked rocks would have burned her feet through her boots. Instead, Aang mentioned something about an upward trail through the jungle, and Katara still remembers the noise of unanimous assent that rang through the group in Appa's saddle. It keeps her going in this too-humid atmosphere, the heat that seems exaggerated whenever one of them pauses for deep, dramatic breaths in the endless journey up.

_It's my fault too. I wanted to come this way. My fault. But I'm not going to say it out loud—that's humiliating. _

"What do you expect me to do?" she huffs. "Find a river, or something?"

Aang lifts his head from the ground, arms and legs akimbo. Above him lies Momo in a leafy tree limb, sleeping peacefully, one little arm hanging bonelessly over the side of his perch.

"That would be really great, actually," Aang says with a hopeful smile. He's too tired to have sensed her sarcasm. Or, remember that _he's a waterbender_ _too_. But Katara stands up anyway, the hard ribbed edges of the tree behind her scraping her back. When the rest of the group agrees with the Avatar, she makes a long-suffering noise and rubs her eyes.

"Fine," she grumbles. She can almost tell that this small walk alone will be a journey. She's not done moping about the loss of the day of the eclipse, the fact that she may not see her father again, and every time she's alone she thinks about things that depress her. She talks to herself. She points out her faults, gripes over them. But before she can whine about that, Sokka has already brought over two large, empty canteens and forced them into her arms.

"Take these," he says haughtily, "and don't come back until they're full!"

There's the Sokka she knows and loves. Katara doesn't know how to go about glaring at her brother when he's already turned his back to her, so she gives everyone a perky 'goodbye' before deciding to walk to the left. She weaves her way through the trees, cradling the leather-bound canteens in her arms, and the first of many memories tears its way up to the surface.

"_I can heal that, you know." _

That voice brings up the image of a shocked, yellow-eyed lost boy searching for words, glowing green crystals and an accidental holding of hands in a crowded tavern. And, then—

"_What?"_

"_Your scar. I have healing powers. If you wanted to be rid of it, I could help you." _

"_It's a _scar. _It can't be healed." _

A slow, deliberate touch to the vial around her neck. Just enough, she'd thought. Just enough to heal what she now views as his _stupid, double-crossing butt face. _

But in the end, when Long Feng crashed through the wall in the middle of a refusal to be healed and an almost-kiss that Katara is still not sure if she started, she'd had to use it on Aang. The Dai Li reached him before Katara did, attacking on the offense so fluidly that she remembered thinking of them as some sort of dancers.

(…The sudden picture of the Dai Li dancing seductively in step on a stage, surrounded by hooting men, wearing frilly pink dresses and their usual grumpy frowns makes Katara snort a laugh and nearly trip over an unearthed tree root.

Her mind has a way of surprising her like that.)

.

* * *

.

"…_Ugh_!"

Katara freezes, her head shoots up in the direction of the shout, and her arms tighten around the water canteens. Not that they'll really help, of course. But something about their shape and build makes her think that she could successfully knock a person out with them.

"Dumb badger-frog… dumb trees… stupid jungle…"

The unseen person goes on ranting for a while, prudently sure that each word has 'dumb' or 'stupid' in front of it, but Katara's too busy picking up her gaping jaw to listen.

_Is that… Zuko? How on earth did he get here?_

"What am I supposed to say? 'Sorry I ran away like an idiot on the Day of Black Sun, and that I almost got you killed, can I join your group again?' _No!_"

Katara gasps. _It is Zuko! The nerve of that guy. _

The voice grows closer; it's muttering, now, but in such a tone that Katara doesn't want to know what Zuko is saying. When she hears the beginning of leaves rustling about ten feet away, she steps backward until she finds a large leafy bush coated in tiny yellow berries, and ducks behind it. And just in time—Zuko comes trudging through the thick underbrush, shirtless, and looking rather sour.

Sokka takes off his shirt when he's angry, too. Katara knows it's because whenever he sees his body in his reflection, he 'stops moping and starts groping'—a phrase he came up with himself. Sokka is incredibly happy with his physique. But Katara has to say… she thinks Zuko should be happier. She stifles a tiny, mortified giggle behind her hand. But Zuko still whips around.

"Is somebody there?"

Now that Zuko's face is in full view, Katara can appreciate (in a _completely_ professional way) that he's grown his hair out to perfect proportions for his face. He looks so… different without that weird ponytail, or even the cut he had in the Earth Kingdom. Now he looks less like a hateful, scarred and angry teenage boy and more like a human being. If that makes any sense at all. Aang had gone through a _remotely_ related transformation during his small coma. Katara has to admit she'd felt a tiny attraction for him when he had hair, when all of a sudden he'd become Not-Bald and Not-So-Young Aang. But then he shaved again the day of the invasion, and like magic her interest started to fade.

Katara stays quiet and perfectly still, breathing shallowly and ignoring her legs' protests as she sits crouched down on the balls of her feet. Out of all the noises in this jungle, the tiny _chirrups _of cricket-locusts, cackles of a bird far off in the distance, hoots of many unnamed creatures and the drawling moan of a badger-frog, Zuko had to hear _her. _Of course.

"Is somebody there?" Zuko says again, looking almost comically irritated, and Katara holds her breath for as long as she is able.

_If he finds me, what'll he do? _

Katara has come across Zuko when he's surprised. He bends fire and stomps around and yells when he's surprised. She doesn't want to be around him now that he's _angry _and surprised, because who knows what kind of rage that inflames?

After a while Zuko sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Sokka does this, too, but rarely; he does it when he's on the verge of a headache and it muffles the pain, or so he says. Zuko silently mouths to himself for about a minute before dropping his hand, taking a deep breath and saying,

"…Look, I know I've been your enemy for a really long time. I've chased you all over the world and… tried to kill you. I've made a lot of mistakes; I'm willing to admit that. But I have changed. And—and I don't mean that in a bad way, because I'd already changed during that time in the Si Wong Desert, when I was bad but then I was good… but anyway, I'm sorry for running out on you on the day of the eclipse, and I think it's time I joined your group… uh, again. And taught the Avatar… firebending." Then he pauses, kicks a rock, and tugs at his shaggy hair with both hands. "Gah!"

Katara is pretty sure the expression on her face is the same one she made when she accidentally broke an iceberg the size of her village and brought Aang to the surface. Zuko had known she'd been there _the whole time? _He had even looking in her direction, come to think of it. As for teaching Aang firebending—

What!

"_What?_"

She stands up, dropping the canteens, resting her hands on her hips and fixing her mouth in her sternest frown. Zuko looks at her in embolic shock, and his face reminds Katara of a fish that has been smacked repeatedly against a rock.

"Where did—" he begins.

"_You, _teach _Aang?_" She repeats scathingly. "I don't think so! _You _are the reason we lost the invasion! You decided it would be a better idea to 'face the Fire Lord by yourself', which_ I_ highly doubt by the way, but you _neglected _to tell us about the huge reaction force he had in the palace! How am I supposed to know you didn't come here to spy on us?"

Zuko gapes, trying Katara's patience to its limit, before (instead of answering her question) he blurts, "…I didn't know you were back there!"

She rolls her eyes and steps out from behind her bush. "Don't be an idiot," she says. "I heard you. Who _else _would you be talking to?"

"Nobody! I wasn't talking to anyone!"

"Well, it sure didn't sound like that to me!"

Zuko gives off a sound of frustration, makes an annoyed gesture with his hands and says, "What… what are you _doing _here?"

Katara rests her own hands on her hips and gazes at the firebender evenly. "I could ask the same of you, Zuko. Aren't you supposed to be home with daddy?"

Zuko inclines his head and glares at her, and somewhere inside Katara knows she's plucked at the wrong string.

"I didn't go back to join him. You _know_ that," he says. "I went back to defeat him. And I almost did." He grows quiet near the end and rubs his right arm, as if he's remembering something he'd rather forget.

"Then why didn't you?" Katara asks, genuinely curious. She keeps the anger in her voice just because she still doesn't trust him. Zuko sighs and moves his hand to the back of his neck.

"Because… that's the Avatar's destiny," he admits. "Not mine."

"How do you know that?"

"I just… felt it. And I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill the Fire Lord."

Katara forms a hasty speech at this. Her mouth opens but she suddenly chokes and can't speak, because she knows exactly what she's going to say (_Why? Why? The Fire Lord is a coward. You're a coward, Zuko, and you're leaving a twelve-year-old to do what you should have done before, why do you have to be shirtless it's making me lose my concentration you jerk, I've never seen a shirtless man before and it's kind of nice)_.She can deal with rage, speeches of hope and speeches that make people remember they have a conscience. But when she loses her train of thought, Katara isn't very valuable in the area of words. Zuko's exposed, sweaty chest, rippling with muscle in the dim sunlight, is making Katara feel very useless indeed.

"You're…" she says, with as much emphasis as she can muster. There are a few words running through her head to describe Zuko, and her addled brain chooses one. "Hot."

Zuko blinks and frowns. "…What?"

It takes a second for Katara to realize what she's said. Then she almost screams at herself, and with a dark blush on her cheeks, forcefully corrects, "J…Jerk! You're a _jerk_, Zuko!"

"But… wait, did you just call me—"

"NO!" Katara shrieks. She presses her fists to her face and groans in mortification. "I… Oh! Forget it. Just…" she pauses, and continues meekly, "…put a shirt on. _Please._"

Zuko's eyes light up in realization and Katara thinks she sees the beginnings of a smirk on his face before he turns away.

"A shirt," he says. She _hears _his smile, now. "Right."

Katara grits her teeth together, aching to teach him a thing or two about teasing _her, _but when he begins to walk away she has no choice but to follow him… at a distance, of course. They walk for a while in silence, the tiny leaves on the forest floor being crushed underfoot. For some reason, Katara goes out of her way to step on the drier ones… well, they do make a more satisfying _crunch_. Zuko looks back at her skeptically several times, but says nothing of it. A few times, Katara thinks of the abandoned canteens. She thinks of Sokka's disappointed whine. But then she thinks of him taking out his tantrum on Zuko, and she's satisfied.

She stops when, after a very short walk, she sees Zuko's small, tidy camp. But Zuko keeps walking with one hand in his hair, talking to himself. He stoops down when he comes to his tent, which is really the red fabric of a war balloon slung over a few strong branches, and walks inside. The whole of this place is a little clearing. There's a fire pit in the center and leaves littered across the ground. The inside of the tent doesn't look comfortable at all. He must have to sleep without any kind of pillow, thinks Katara. So just after planning his funeral, she asks Zuko softly, "How long have you been here?"

The firebender pokes his head out guardedly, eyeing her, and says, "Long enough." Then he ducks back in, is silent for a few moments and comes out in a red, form fitted tunic that is tied shut with an off-gold sash. After a beat, he watches her and seems as if he's going to speak. So Katara interrupts.

"What do you want with us?"

"…If you heard what I said earlier, then you already know that."

"There's no way you followed us to teach Aang firebending again," says Katara doubtfully.

Zuko looks peeved at this. "Why _else _would I follow you?"

"I don't know!" Katara says helplessly. "You've done a_ lot_ of questionable things in the past."

He glares at her. "Fine. Believe what you want. But at least take me to see him."

"Out of the question!" Katara's feeling snappish, and so she punctuates this with a sharp stomp of her foot to the ground. "Like I said, there's still no way I can believe you're not a spy for your father. Is Azula here, too? Should I expect her to pop out of the ground, spitting fire and cackling, or something?" Her gaze flits to the forest floor unwittingly.

Zuko sighs and rolls his eyes. "Azula's not here," he says with exaggerated patience. Then he gets a new, awkward expression on his face and changes tactics. "May I… _please_… see the Avatar?"

"No! I just said that. I don't trust you, Zuko."

And he finally snaps a little.

"Well, maybe you would if you _listened_ to me instead of acting like such an empty-headed peasant!"

Katara snorts. "Ooh, big words for someone who wears pointy shoes. Who does your wardrobe for you, a badgermole?"

"Are you calling my shoes stupid?"

"Maybe I just feel bad that they have to be on your big, stinky feet all day."

"You're definitely being mature about this."

"…What's that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you think it means."

"I think it means you're calling me childish!"

Zuko considers this. "Well, you do seem to have a complex."

Katara pauses, blinks, and frowns. The wheels in her head start to turn. _Complex…? _"…So you're saying I'm… _insulting_ you because I… haven't gotten over Ba Sing Se, yet?"

Zuko blinks, and what flashes across his face is startled confusion, but Katara's eyes interpret it as something else entirely. She huffs.

"You are! Well, how dare you! I'll have you know that… that I wasn't going to do _anything _in that stupid cave anyway, so you can just forget about the whole thing." She crosses her arms over her chest for emphasis and nods. "I don't even know why you thought you could bring it up."

"Actually, I didn't—"

"I mean, really! It wasn't like I was just going to waltz right up to you and play throat hockey, you know? Long Feng actually came in just in time; I knew I could've needed that water for something_ really_ important… well, I still have some of it, but you never brought it up again, even though I kept hinting at it. So I kind of figured…" Katara trails off, forgetting where she was going with that monologue, and scratches her arm. She looks up into Zuko's face and grimaces. "What was I saying?"

Zuko smiles thinly. "You don't like me, and I should forget about the cave. Also, no throat hockey."

"Oh, yeah. Another thing—"

"You were hinting at healing me?"

Katara's brow furrows and she pauses with one assertive finger in the air. After a stunned moment, she sighs.

"All the time," she says slowly. "You're kind of dense sometimes. Whenever I'd say, 'Hey, Zuko, remember Ba Sing Se?' and you'd say 'That stupid place? I'd rather not,' I got kind of discouraged. But I still would've healed you. Then…" Katara shakes her head and gives him an uncertain glare. "…_then_, you ran away."

"I'm guessing you hate me for that, huh?"

Katara's eyes slide over Zuko's drawn face, and she quickly says, "No! I…" A beat. "…I only hate one person," _The man who killed my mother, _"and it's not you. I'm angry at you, yes, and I haven't forgiven you for deserting us. But I don't… hate you."

Zuko looks relieved. Just when Katara is about to tease him for it, his relief fades and is replaced with a slight, classic Zuko frown.

"You're still not going to let me back in, are you?" he asks. Katara forms the words 'of course I am,' remembers she's supposed to be angry, and then shows her agreement through a halfhearted cross of her arms.

"That's… that's right," she says, too hesitantly. But she's sure Zuko doesn't notice it: he's got a bit of a creepy smile on his face, and that has to take up a lot of his concentration. "So… you might as well just go back to that little hole of yours, because I'm leaving. And you _don't _want to follow. Believe me." Katara thinks, proudly, that she sounds nearly as intimidating as Azula when she says that. She turns her back on the firebender and begins to march off, another insult on the tip of her tongue—

—and Zuko grabs her wrist, effectively stopping her. She is about to turn and wrench her wrist away when she hears (and _feels_) Zuko's words in her ear.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" he whispers. Katara shudders.

"Wh-what are you doing?" she demands, more power in her voice than she really feels.

"Oh, that depends," Zuko continues smoothly, and Katara grows impossibly stiffer when one of his hands pushes the hair away from the back of her neck, giving her skin a chill that shouldn't exist in the jungle air. Then she realizes, _I've read romance scrolls like this. He's… what was that word? Deducing? Seducing me? Something like that…_

"Stop touching me," she orders swiftly. Zuko pauses, but doesn't move away. His body is still dangerously close to hers, his head almost bowed against her throat, and Katara feels her tight reins on self-control slipping away.

"Why?" he breathes. The single exhalation into her ear sends little needles of sensation down the waterbender's spine.

_What am I supposed to do, here? _She wonders desperately. It doesn't occur to her that she could twist around, bring a knee to his crotch and pull away at any moment—but then, it must not have occurred to Zuko, either, as he's not even trying to hold her back. _What is it that girls do in this situation? Moan, or something? _

"Take me with you," Zuko says quietly. His other hand snakes around her waist and pulls her tighter against him.

"No," Katara mutters, and bites her traitorous lip for quivering. "I can't…"

"Yes, you can," he responds. Katara feels his rough-skinned fingers at the skin of her nape and gasps. Then, of all times, her conscience reminds her _who _this is, and why she can't be this close to him.

"I'm warning you, Zuko," she says menacingly, only it's not menacing at all and Zuko gives a small laugh at the squeak that is her voice. Something warm and smooth slides in the gap of Katara's collarbones and she gasps. _I think he's going to kiss me I'm absolutely certain he's going to kiss me please kiss me just get it over with please…_

She turns her head and squeezes her eyes shut, fully expecting the unfamiliar sensation of a mouth on hers, when Zuko jerks away and Katara is left to flail around by herself.

"Wh—"

"Thank you," says Zuko. "Uncle was right: closeness is the way to a woman's heart." Katara opens her eyes in growing embarrassment and confusion, about to demand what he's talking about when she sees her mother's necklace dangling by the ribbon between Zuko's left thumb and forefinger. The smugness on his face is almost too much to bear. But, like so many of his emotions, it moves aside to make room for the oldest of his faces that Katara has seen, the Snooty Prince Snark.

"You _will _take me to the Avatar," he says.

Katara gapes. "What?"

"Don't make me repeat myself."

"But you…" Katara makes gestures with her hands, trying to copy his previous closeness to her body, and finally throws caution to the wind. "You… you _seduced me_… for my necklace?"

The Snooty Prince Snark is gone, and Zuko looks unsure. "No, I didn't."

Katara is persistent. "Yes, you did! You were _breathing _on my _neck! _You were whispering in my ear! I almost kissed you, and you stole my mother's necklace! Again!"

"You almost—?"

"Give it back!"

"No. This is collateral. I'm keeping it until you let me re-join the group."

"…You're infuriating."

"So I've been told."

"_Ugh!_" Katara shouts in frustration, clenching her fists. This is fifth on her list of 'Reasons Why to Hate Zuko.' She takes a deep breath through her nose to calm herself, and finally says, "…_Fine_. Fine, all right? If you're that desperate to get turned down, okay by me. This way, Zuko." She really, sincerely hopes the group will tear him to shreds, like _she_ so badly wants to. He's lucky she loves that necklace so much.

After they've walked for a while, Zuko clears his throat. A lot. The first few times, Katara just figured he had a sore throat, but after the seventh _ahem _she grows suspicious.

"_What _do you want?" she asks, not slowing her pace. The firebender behind her is silent for a moment.

"So… you, uh, you really thought I was…seducing you?" he says quietly. Katara masks her slight panic with a roll of her eyes.

"What you did… that's what usually happens when a girl is being seduced," she says deliberately. Then she adds, "You should know that. You've read romance scrolls."

She hears Zuko stop, and crush an unusually large twig under his boot. "No, I haven't!"

Katara snorts. "Oh, yeah? Then why'd you steal one of mine a few months ago? For the _pretty illustrations_?"

It's a while before Zuko is softly, painfully truthful.

"…That was for my uncle."

This time, Katara pauses. But it's only for a second. "Oh."

"...And you were about to _kiss_ me?"

"Don't… don't change the subject!"

"You did it first!"

"Well, I have the authority to."

"I don't?"

"No. You're from the Fire Nation. You don't get any authority at all."

"…I see. I wasn't _going _to kiss you, you know."

Katara blushes again, and feels hurt for some ridiculous reason. "Well, good! I didn't want you to!"

"See, my uncle—"

"I don't care!"

"—he said you have to get really close, and whisper in a woman's ear…"

"Zuko!"

"…and that's how you get what you want."

Katara wants to smack her palm against her forehead. She wants to call Zuko a doofus. For once in her short life, she _wants_ to act like Sokka. This is the extent of what being around Zuko does to her.

"Zuko," she says slowly, "your uncle… wasn't talking about interrogation." She turns her head slightly and sees Zuko blink a couple times.

"He… wasn't?"

"No." She says nothing more after that. _He'll get it eventually. He is a teenage boy, after all. _

"But you still would've—"

"I'll freeze you to a tree. I swear I will."

"…Sorry."

They walk in silence after that.

.

* * *

.

"Hey, Sugar Queen! Welcome back to paradise!"

Katara stops. She wipes some sweat off of her forehead and frowns. Zuko, not paying attention, bumps into her back with a little '_oof!' _and then rears away awkwardly. Katara is about to quickly apologize to everyone for her lack of canteens before she presents the person behind her—she's already trying to remember which bush she left them under. But after a while, her eyes adjust and the waterbender doesn't like what she sees: Toph, Aang, Sokka, Teo and The Duke in their respective positions, looking happy and _not thirsty at all_.

"…Turns out there was a little creek about a hundred yards in the other direction," continues Toph happily, stretching back against her fruit tree. "Don't know why I didn't see it sooner, actually. So to speak. How's Flamebutt doing?"

And that_'_s when Katara realizes what Toph has done.

Zuko waves and says, "…Hi," which is the guy equivalent of _sorry I ran out. _

"Hey," says a reclined Sokka in the same manner, which is the guy equivalent of _it's cool._

And then the Banished Prince of the Fire Nation passes Katara with a brush of fingertips and a small smirk. He begins his apologetic tirade, the group accepts him back with open arms, and Katara still wants to kiss him.

Her life has never been more confusing.

_Fin_


End file.
